Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1747Aug 13, 2018 12:08 pm My building experience https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=91499 Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1750Aug 17, 2018 11:50 am Hi all, update on our place We have bricks on the lower level, and a roof. Ive also noticed the slow down happening. We are told that something will be happening next week, but it doesnt even start happening until the Friday. Nada, i think your roof will be coming soon, my roof is done, and so is the one around the corner from me, you must be next! Its quite handy, theres another KH build about 2 streets away thats about a week ahead of me, that i can see from my place, its handy to check where they are up to because the trades are going from that site to ours. I havent even got an eta on when they expect lockup though. I asked the other day and SS said he wont know for a few weeks. But i thought after bricks it was just electrical rough in and then lockup? Didnt think it was that far off we couldnt even get an eta... Im thinking about getting an inspector to come to the prelining inspection.. not sure yet.. did anyone else get one? Or planning to? Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1751Aug 17, 2018 12:06 pm Hi the dream, we are planning to do the pre-lining inspections by ourselves. we have lots of customised electrical and other features so we want to be sure they are in the right spots and everything works as planned. before the lockup they have to do AC ducting, electrical, alarm and other works. they also have to finish all the insulation. I understand as all listed in done be different subcontractors, it may take longer as each of them need to arrange their time. our SS sends us a few line SMS weekly and from them I can see nothing has been done in the past few weeks. By the way, our construction started a months before yours and it is funny that now it looks like your build is slightly ahead of mine Looks like they really just move people from a site to a nearest site. Anyway, I must admit it is so relaxing not to deal with admin people anymore. it feels like we have extra hours in our day Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1752Aug 17, 2018 12:54 pm Hi All, First post for me. We are building with KH and also had a delayed experience with admin staff (8months). Think we avg the same as others with 2 weeks between progress on the one step at a time checklist. We are now pending our Bank valuing the draft contract and then onto the contract which is pending the banks details which should be any day now, finally some excitement as the contracts staff appears a lot more capable than the other admin staff. Also very happy to hear how quick some progress is happening with you guys now and that Nada they waited for the slab to cure before starting the frame, my big concern. I don't think the construction process is necessarily there fault as there is so much building going on its hard to secure tradies. Just need to look in S/W corridor to see that, everyday it seems a new land release followed by new display homes and everyone one else's construction. Good luck with your builds and hopefully the tradies have finished yours when ours is ready to start Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1753Aug 17, 2018 9:18 pm J_C Welcome to Kurmond homes thread and also to the forum. It is so great to get to know someone else who is also building with Kurmond homes. Could I know exactly where the delays occurred? Was that the same case that Kurmond homes messed up your color selection? Keep with us and share your experience with us. Together it will be easier this journey I believe My building experience https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=91499 Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1754Aug 20, 2018 8:11 am Thanks Mallik Just the delay in communications and the back and forward with odd changes, it seemed like every time there people looked at something either had to or was changed. I admit we really changed the base plan way back at the very start by adding over 100sqm, however the whole thing seemed like a very odd process compared to other houses I have built including 8 months later council required a change as the design didn't comply with side easements. We were told the usual 6 weeks for drafting and colour from tender signing, 6 weeks at council then 6 weeks to complete contract. First section took 7 months, council took 3 weeks and we are still working on the contract (hopefully sign this week). Our bank has just completed the re-approval process and gave us the thumbs up Friday night so hopefully smoother sailing is ahead Regarding colours the first person missed items, didn't get us prices (had done it just never sent through to us). They then hired the new girl who was really good until I think she was doing everyone's and got overloaded. After she left we ended up with the management level and things sped up to a normal pace. I am hoping its just the admin side that is not up to scratch, from what I have seen the build and finished products are worth it in the end. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1755Aug 20, 2018 8:49 pm J_C Thanks Mallik Just the delay in communications and the back and forward with odd changes, it seemed like every time there people looked at something either had to or was changed. I admit we really changed the base plan way back at the very start by adding over 100sqm, however the whole thing seemed like a very odd process compared to other houses I have built including 8 months later council required a change as the design didn't comply with side easements. We were told the usual 6 weeks for drafting and colour from tender signing, 6 weeks at council then 6 weeks to complete contract. First section took 7 months, council took 3 weeks and we are still working on the contract (hopefully sign this week). Our bank has just completed the re-approval process and gave us the thumbs up Friday night so hopefully smoother sailing is ahead Regarding colours the first person missed items, didn't get us prices (had done it just never sent through to us). They then hired the new girl who was really good until I think she was doing everyone's and got overloaded. After she left we ended up with the management level and things sped up to a normal pace. I am hoping its just the admin side that is not up to scratch, from what I have seen the build and finished products are worth it in the end. Thank you for information on what happened in your case. I also hope they finally would build a good house My building experience https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=91499 Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1756Aug 31, 2018 11:49 am Hi guys, just an update on our build. we had a rough week with Kurmond's office again. we got our kitchen plans and when we commented that something didn't reflect the final construction plans which we signed before contract they didn't bother to try to fix it and just started threatening us with putting the construction on hold if we don't sign the kitchen plans as they are. our construction office lady really doesn't know anything and doesn't bother reading our e-mails. She just keeps sending copy.paste e-mails which say that they are about to stop the construction. The issues were resolved only when I again gave them a notice to lodge a complaint with Fair Trading NSW. Only then they decided that it is better if kitchen subcontractor contacts us and resolves all the issues directly. After speaking to kitchen subcontractor we had to amend our kitchen layouts ourselves and sign them this way as kitchen subcontractor refused to change anything. Kurmond of course didn't care less to help. Boy, they really save a lot of money on staff. Anyway, we have been also contacted by our SS. next week we will have pre-lining/frame inspection. We requested an inspection at the time when all the hidden works including all services and insulation are finished but our SS only offered one before insulation installation. They say they will provide us with pictures of walls with insulation. I am not sure what exactly they will send us. We would prefer to go and see everything ourselves. We would also want to take pictures of all walls before lining in care if we need to do any modifications or install anything on walls. Anyway we will try to get in there before they install gyprok. We have not been to site for a months but Kurmond sent us some update pics. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1758Aug 31, 2018 10:38 pm @nada17 My experience with Kurmond home office people suggests they have mixed bag of people. Some really work hard and try to help people at their best, while some people even tend to blame their customers for their own delays and issues, and have "ball passing" attitude. For example, our color selection lady seems overloaded with work, but she always displays a positive attitude toher customers and tries to help them in a way or other. I can't yet comment much about our CO lady, not much work yet done with her. But some people try to find a way around passing the blame to their customers, but not giving any positive influence to make things faster. My building experience https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=91499 Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1759Sep 06, 2018 2:13 pm An update on my build: We had a pre-lining inspection last Tuesday. Everything looked very good. We had couple of comments. It appeared the SS didn't have signed electric plans and the construction plans he had didn't have all the info on them. 1) cabling for the feature lights on main facade was on wrong height (we needed it higher). the height was specified on signed electrical plans but it seems it was not there on the construction plans they used. 2) we have requested a conduit going from next to the main electric box to the roof space (for future solar panels installation). it was specified on the signed electrical plans but somehow they have decided to start conduit from the garage wall, inside and behind the main electric box (which is outside). That would require future drilling the wall to connect the solar electrical box to the main box and we of course wanted to avoid it and therefore requested what requested. We also had a few comments on locations of the control panels for A/C. They put it where they think it is the best so if you have certain locations in mind, ask them to put in on their mark-up that they send you to sign. We didn't do that though we discussed it with them. Anyway, hopefully they will fix the issues quickly. We asked them for pictures but haven't received any yet. They have to start putting plasterboard today and they estimated that it would take a week or so. The stairs are scheduled for middle of September and lock-up at the end of September. Oh yes, we had an issue with the stairs. briefly, the stair contractor suggested that top of the stairs will not look good and proposed a new stair layout. We hated it at it included 5 turning treads on the middle landing instead of 2 square ones that we had initially. Thankfully everything was resolved in one day but again we have spent so much energy to have everything the way we wanted it. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1760Sep 14, 2018 7:46 am nada17 How is your work progressing at the moment? We had very stressful time with Kurmond homes. Kurmond CO is "complaining" us there are 8 jobs in front of our jobs to be finalized therefore our job will take at least 6 weeks to prepare the contract! The way she putting up things is like its our fault that they have a mess in their office and process, and she basically "blames" us that it will be unfair for the other customers to prioritise our job. CO attitudes seem like she is totally fine even if a customer walks away! She doesn't seem to care of a loss of a business which Kurmond homes has done a significant amount of work. The feeling I got is some people in Kurmondd staff have built up an attitude to just get around with a customer escalation rather honestly willing to resolve the issue. No wonder why they have so much complains about their office process. I was thinking to escalate the matter to Kurmond owners (Mr Peter Kulakovski and Mr Michael Kulakovski), but then I thought it will fair for Kurmond staff to first escalate this to their management. So I escalated the matter to someone in their managment, she didn't reply but she had got our CO herself to response, which she now has committed to finalizing the final tender end of this week (today) and then to finalize final construction plans end of next week. I hope she will keep her word on her commitments. My building experience https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=91499 Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 74717 I would never build with Fowler homes. 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